The 5 Best Devices for Mobile Learning
This post has been written for Cageless Thinking by Bryan Baker. Bryan works with LeanForward, a mobile learning company. There are many mobile devices out there today that allow users to surf the internet, play games and download applications. In addition to being a great source of entertainment, mobile devices are also an excellent tool for learning and education. Technology has always played a major part in continuing the education of the human race. Years ago, computers that filled an entire room were used to help with research at...
read moreThe 5 Apps EdTech needs now
Having been teaching with a tablet in my classroom for nearly a year it has become evident that the market for Education apps still isn’t quite right. I think this is most evident in the fact that the course I run training teachers to use an iPad effectively in the classroom features almost no ‘education’ apps. I do one session (out of 7) that revolves around subject-specific apps, but other than this, the apps that are used on a day-to-day basis are commercial, and often free. That said, even these great apps, that no doubt you...
read moreWhat is the point of Educational Technology?
I spend a huge amount of my time reading about the top 5 apps for teachers, the best software for collaborative writing, the best web tool for this, that or the other, how to do something that I’ve never heard of but should have and now feel guilty about, so I’m going to Google it and try to drop it into a conversation next time I’m face to face with another teacher, so that I seem on top of the ever-burgeoning world of educational technology. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan. I might even describe myself as being someone close...
read moreThe Reality of the Classroom of the Future
In the UK, private schools often use ‘small class sizes’ at 6th form (16-18years old) as a selling point to entice parents to choose their school over another. I regularly have the opportunity of teaching groups of 10 or less in their final year of study and this certainly has significant benefits. What is fascinating about teaching 6th form students is how 2 significant things change in the classroom: the teacher stops standing at the front of the room, and the use of varied teaching resources stops. Of course this is a horrible...
read moreThe Evernote Experiment: Part 1
From 8th January – 22nd March I chose one class, my First Year class (aged11-12) to give up using exercise books, reading books and textbooks. Instead, they would use only digital mediums that were available to them through an iPad that they were supplied with during each lesson. We are now at the halfway point of this test, and I wanted to reflect a little on what I have found so far. The first stumbling block was the fact that the iPads that they had access to were not theirs to take home – they were issued at the start...
read more5 Reasons to use Apple TV in the classroom
This article has also been published on the fantastic Edudemic website. Apple TV has been around for a while now, but it is not as famous as the devices and machines that the company have become famous for. In many ways, its use in the domestic household is limited to a few really neat tricks. But, when you get this device into a classroom, I would argue that it is a game-changer. 1. You are the front of the room With Apple TV you don’t need to stand at the front of the room. You can move, you can sit with your students, you or your...
read moreChoosing the Right Mobile Learning Device
Last week, even by my standards, was an EdTech overload. I spent a day at BETT 2013 and followed this up with a visit to The Brewery in London for the Apple Education Leaders Summit. Aside from the fact that they were both free, the two events could not have been more different. One was chaotic, overwhelming in its size, underwhelming in its ability to inspire and poorly lit, the other was cool, calm, slick and intelligently indoctrinating. It doesn’t take a genius to work out which was which. For all it’s faults, BETT was one...
read moreIn search of innovation in our schools
Innovation is the single most important quality needed in a staff common room. It’s the thing students don’t know that they want in their teachers, but the thing they value the most when they reflect on your teaching. Innovation takes many forms, but nowhere do you see so many of these, than in the best primary schools. The creative curriculum is alive and kicking in primary schools, but it is in danger of being dead and buried in secondary education. There are a lot of reasons why it might be easier for primary schools to be...
read more2013: The Year Education Changes Forever?
It’s always quite good fun, a little optimistic and potentially depressing to get to the end of the year and start making resolutions for, and predications about, the year ahead. As 2012 comes to a close, we have learnt that the Mayan calendar wasn’t as accurate as they thought it was, that China will have a new leader, but the US won’t and that the UK is a pretty good host nation when it comes to global sporting events, but its leaders make really horrible decisions when it comes to education policy. It’s likely to be...
read more5 Reasons why the iPad will stay the king of the classroom
1. It’s not a laptop The biggest and most oft-heard criticism of the iPad usually revolves around it not behaving like a desktop PC or laptop. The people making this complaint are simply missing the point. Apple aren’t trying to make a laptop replacement, why would they? They make a couple of extremely good ones! The iPad is a new kind of device that asks you to think and work differently. The fact that it isn’t a laptop, to me, is its greatest attribute: The SAMR model suggests that there are 4 degrees of sophistication...
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